Schools

West Orange Public School Teachers All ‘Effective’ Or Higher: DOE

The NJDOE "graded" hundreds of teachers in West Orange. They all passed the test, state officials report.

WEST ORANGE, NJ — According to the New Jersey Department of Education, all of West Orange's public school teachers were “effective” or "highly effective" in 2015 and 2016.

The New Jersey Department of Education once again has come up with a list that was developed under a relatively new teacher and administrator evaluation system, with educators in the 2015-16 school year graded on a scale of four measures.

The state identified the number of teachers and administrators in each school district deemed "highly effective," "effective," "partially effective" and "ineffective" and released the list last week. If nine or fewer staff received a rating of ineffective, the record was "suppressed" and not part of the data file.

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In West Orange, out of 586 ranked teachers, 392 were “effective” and 191 were “highly effective,” the DOE stated. Out of 19 West Orange administrators (principals, assistant principals and vice-principals), 12 were "highly effective" and 7 were not included the data.

The evaluation system began after the state legislature passed a teacher tenure system five years ago that ultimately sought to identify the weakest and the best teachers. State law now requires every district to use a standardized evaluation system based on observed classroom practices and some measure of student performance.

Find out what's happening in West Orangefor free with the latest updates from Patch.

With previous reporting by Tom Davis

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